More than 2,500 grassroots canvassers were inaugurated in Kwara State on Friday to engage in massive mobilisation of people from all the wards and polling units in the state to ensure victory for the All Progressives Congress (APC) at all levels in this year’s general elections.

“These canvassers will be our victory army, the army that will dismantle the gargantuan edifice of corruption and misgovernance that has held our dear state down for too long,” the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who is also the leader of the party in the state, said at the inauguration of the canvassers at the Buhari/Osinbajo Project 2019 Office in Ilorin.

“This unprecedented move is our most potent weapon against the enemies of the state and the oppressors of the people,” he said.

Alhaji Mohammed said the “well-recruited, tested and trusted canvassers” will go from house to house in each of the 1,872 polling units in the state to tell the people why they must vote for President Muhammadu Buhari and all the candidates of the APC in Kwara State in the 2019 general elections.

“Gathered here today are 1,872 canvassers representing the 18,720 canvasses. That is one canvasser per each polling unit across the 193 wards in Kwara State. We are also inaugurating today 193 ward coordinators, 193 ward secretaries, 193 ward women leaders and 193 ward youth leaders,” he said.

The Minister said the stellar performance of President Buhari in reinventing governance and his pro-poor policies have made the job of the canvassers much easier.

“To the canvassers, if they ask you why President Buhari deserves a second term, tell them it is because he has leveraged his legendary integrity and acclaimed management of resources, human and material, to reinvent governance and make a difference in the lives of Nigerians. Therefore, he needs another four years to consolidate his great achievements,” he said.

Alhaji Mohammed then went ahead to reel out the administration’s achievements, starting with the Social Investment Programme (SIP) which, he said, is benefiting a total of 10 million people directly nationwide.

He said the Buhari Administration is feeding 9.3 million pupils in 45,394 schools in 26 states and employing 100,000 cooks under the Home Grown School Feeding Programme; that the Administration is paying conditional cash transfer of N5,000 monthly to about 300,000 most vulnerable households and that over 1.5 million people nationwide have benefited from the interest-free loans to petty traders under the TraderMoni Scheme.

“The Administration has retaken every inch of Nigeria’s territory from insurgents, flushed them out of their safe havens and put them on the run. Road projects are ongoing across very state of the country, turning the country into one huge construction site. Kwara is a beneficiary, as those who have travelled on the Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa and the Ajase-Ipo-Offa road can testify,” the Minister said.

Alhaji Mohammed used the occasion to assure all the APC candidates for this year’s elections that the recent court judgment in respect of the state executive council of the party has not affected the validity of their candidature.

“They remain the authentic candidates of our great party and should go about their campaigns without any fear of being disqualified,” he said.

In his remarks, the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, said the 2019 general election represents the struggle by the poor in Nigeria to take back the country from the rich.

He commended the people of Kwara for kick-starting the political revolution that will dismantle the self-serving structures of the rich in the country.

“What you are seeing is the modern day Tunisia. You know the Arab Spring started from Tunisia, when a poor man just set himself on fire and the revolution started all over the country. Today, Kwara is leading the revolution to change Nigeria. Power must return to the people.

“We are gathered here today to peacefully take back power from the rich and handover to the poor. That’s what APC stands for,” he said.

Amaechi charged the people to rise up and defend the APC from the gang-up by the elite, who will always prefer to hold down the poor from attaining self-fulfillment in life.

•Photo shows, from left; The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; Minister of Transportation and the Director General of The Buhari Campaign Organisation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, and APC Candidate for Kwara State, Alhaji Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, at the inauguration of Canvassers for all the wards and polling units in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Friday.